Alzheimer's claims civic trailblazer Owen

Asheville resident noted for selfless style

10:19 PM,
May 5, 2013

Cary Owen, seen in 2007, served on numerous boards in Buncombe County. She died Saturday.

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Through decades of community service at local and state levels, Cary Owen always carried herself with dignity and class, friends and family recall.

Owen, the first woman elected to the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners and a former director and chair of Mission Hospital's board among many other accomplishments, died Saturday of complications from Alzheimer's disease. She was 78.

"It's a blessing," her husband, Charlie Owen, said Sunday of her passing. "She did not suffer." ...